But the woman—Lyra—just shook her head. Still, when her hand dropped, her brow remained furrowed.
Raffe stood up straight, regaining himself now that there was a problem to solve, something to concentrate on other than him and Neve and the unnavigable space between them. “So what does that mean for us? For… everything?”
Such a large thing, such a far-reaching question. Red glanced at Neve, inclined her head. You’re the oldest, the look seemed to say. You answer the questions.
Neve didn’t really know how to do that. But she took a deep breath and tried. “We don’t know,” she began. “But I think… I think magic is here again. In the world, like it was before.”
The atmosphere glinted, an agreement. Could everyone else sense it, too? Or just a few of them, like it had been so long ago?
There will always be people who can access more power, and they will always use it to evil ends.
She clenched her teeth. How much of that had been Arick, feeling phantoms of guilt from the life he’d lived, and how much of it had been the magic speaking through him? Neve wanted to believe they’d done the right thing. She wanted to believe that people could be good, that atoning was possible.
You are good.
Her eyes lifted. Solmir was still there, just a smudge against the snow. Ignored for now, the shock of everything else smoothing over his arrival. She didn’t know how long that would last, and once it wore off, it probably wouldn’t be safe for him to be here. He knew that—the brawl with Eammon made it clear.
And yet he stayed. Making sure she was all right.
You are good.
“It will be like it was before the Shadowlands were made,” Neve continued, keeping her eyes on Solmir. “Where it’s free. Where anyone who can sense it can learn to use it.”
Lyra nodded. Almost subconsciously, her fingers twitched by her side again.
The other woman with the long black hair stepped forward, her face set like she’d decided something. “I’m Okada Kayu.” Then she stuck out her hand, lips in a firm line, as if she expected to be rebuffed.
Okada. Neve remembered the surname. She took Kayu’s proffered hand, inclined her head in the way one royal did to another. “You’re next in line,” she said simply. Something was starting to fill in, the final blanks finding their answers.
Kayu nodded jerkily, then stopped, like the agreement had been premature. “Or, I would be. But I’m the Third Daughter of the Emperor, and an Order priestess—novice, I mean.” Her brows drew together. “Though I don’t think I’m that anymore, either. Since I helped kill the High Priestess.”
Neve’s eyes went wide. Kiri. Dead. Something both relieved and sorrowful plucked at her chest. “I see.”
More pieces falling into place. She almost had it, almost knew what this final act would be. The poem in Tiernan’s book she’d burned held the answer, if she could just remember it.
Snow lighted in Kayu’s dark hair as she shifted uncomfortably. Raffe’s eyes flickered from her to Neve before he reached out and clasped Kayu’s hand. The other woman swallowed, then looked back at Neve, new resolve in her face. “I’m willing to face whatever consequences you deem appropriate for Kiri’s death, Your Majesty. Though I think we can both agree she deserved it.”
Neve snorted. “I wouldn’t argue.”
Kayu’s brow lifted, some of her apprehension shaking free.
The Holy Traitor. Neve remembered it now, the third part of the poem. A novice who murdered the High Priestess certainly counted. But there was something else, another role she felt Kayu should fill.
Majesty had sat so strangely on her shoulders.
“You said you’re the Third Daughter,” Neve said slowly. “Are your older sisters married?”
Raffe’s hand tightened on Kayu’s as she nodded, worry crowding her face again.
And there it was, the final piece clicking into place. Neve being given the freedom to cast off one more thing that didn’t fit, a burden she knew she could no longer hold up under.
She sank to her knees in the snow, quick and graceful. Kayu backed up with a surprised noise, Raffe stiff by her side.
“By the power given to me by lines upon lines of Valleydan queens,” Neve said, getting the words out in a rush, “I hereby cede my title, my holdings, and my queenship to my successor.” The next line was take up this task in the name of the Kings, but Neve refused to say that. She wondered how long their legend would hold, how many more years would go by of people clinging to a lie before it finally faded away. “Will you take up this task, Okada Kayu?”
The other woman’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Eammon looked surprised, still holding Red close to his chest, and Fife and Lyra seemed mostly confused. But Red had a small smile on her face.
Heartbeats of silence, then Raffe turned to Kayu. “It will mean safety,” he said quietly. “Your father won’t be able to marry you off.”
The word safety made Kayu’s shoulders settle, a deep breath leave her mouth. She turned to Neve, nodded. “I’ll take up this task,” she said quietly. “But… why?”
And Neve couldn’t stop her eyes from drifting toward where Solmir stood in the snow. “I’m tired of it, frankly.”
“And I would rather cut off my foot with a spoon than be the Queen of Valleyda,” Red said cheerfully.
“That’s as good a reason as any,” Kayu conceded.
“You’ll be fine,” Neve said as she rose. Queendom seemed to fall from her like a cloak, much easier to shed than godhood had been. She’d been for a different kind of throne, apparently, and now she had none.
A weight lifted.
Anxiety flickered in Kayu’s eyes as she nodded, looking at Neve with slight wariness. She wondered how she appeared to the other woman, ragged and so recently dead, in a ripped nightgown and boots stolen from an underworld.
On the ground, Arick stirred.
Raffe’s eyes went to him immediately, hidden against the snow in his white tunic and breeches. His gaze cycled from surprise to joy to horror as he ran forward, fell to his knees next to his friend. “Arick?” He looked between Red and Neve. “How—”
“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Red said.
A moment, then Arick sat up, pushing snow-dampened hair from his eyes. He looked at Raffe, puzzled, then to the rest of them, brow furrowing further in confusion. When his gaze landed on Red, the confused look wavered, like it might change. It didn’t.
“Hello,” Arick said carefully, pushing himself up from the ground. He chuckled mirthlessly. “Forgive me, but I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here.”
Neve pressed her lips together. One tear slid down Red’s cheek. Neither of them spoke, knowing instinctually what had happened.
The two of them sacrificing their souls had somehow brought Arick back from the strange half death that had tied him to them, to the Heart Tree. But it’d come with a price.
Though Neve wondered if Arick forgetting the whole nightmare, forgetting them, was actually more of a blessing.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked quietly.